From Port Said we sailed for Jaffa, the ancient Joppa of Scripture; and the landing here was the most novel and exciting scene I had yet witnessed in that way. So difficult is the landing sometimes that passengers are always conditionally booked for Jaffa, and to be landed, at the option of the captain, at Beyrout. In our case it was resolved to land, but after some hesitation. The eastern border of the Mediterranean although low is generally rocky, and is extremely subject to sudden and violent storms of waves and breakers on the coast, and no place so much so as Jaffa. There is no harbour, and passengers and goods are landed on the beach; in front is a barrier of three low rocks, the passage between which is only wide enough to admit a boat; the surf often runs very high, and the least deviation would inevitably result in boat-wreck. The pilotage of the boat few but a practised Arab would undertake, and the excitement and bustle on the beach on such occasions are something extraordinary. When we landed, nearly a thousand Arabs, all of the lower class, and not overburdened with garments, congregated ready to fish us out in the event of such an accident.
The moment our boat touched the beach, a crowd of these fellows—who seem all legs and arms—rushed forward, up to the chest in the water, and seized me, one by each limb, bearing me aloft to the shore without leave asked, and carrying on all the while a violent quarrel amongst themselves as to whom I belonged—each of them claiming me as his salvage. The ladies certainly were treated with some measure of respect; but all the other passengers and every article of our luggage passed through the same ordeal, and notwithstanding the violence of the surf we were all landed wonderfully dry—but still in custody of at least four clamorous proprietors, each vociferously demanding payment for our rescue. How we escaped with our luggage safe is wonderful: I presume it could not have been managed but for our dragoman and his lieutenant. The clamour was somewhat more than amusing; but on this as on numerous similar occasions I remarked that, however threatening these Arab quarrels are, I never saw one seriously wound or strike another, even where I was prepared by violence of language and fierceness of gesticulation, to see a murder perpetrated. When no weapon is at hand, they arm themselves with large stones, which are certainly plentiful everywhere.
The hotel, occupied I think by a Frenchman, is situated about a mile beyond the town, beside an orange grove and a few new buildings entirely in the European style. The town itself has a fine appearance from a distance. It is walled and very old, of small size, but extremely crowded, and built upon a rock rising almost out of the sea; the streets—narrow, filthy, and crooked—are besides, generally speaking, very steep. The buildings look as if they had been meant each for a fort, with nothing pleasant-looking about them except the roofs, on which the families appeared chiefly to live. The people at the bazaars seemed a very bustling mixed class, and of a lower morale than any we had met—blacklegs, gamblers, showmen, loafers, and waifs of many lands.
Here, as elsewhere, we found travellers of all nationalities—the Americans perhaps the most numerous. Ladies formed no small fraction of the number, and were in general—at least the Americans—the most thoroughly in earnest, and best equipped. With many of them every possible nook and corner must be explored, and while others were content to see the tombs of patriarchs and saints, Pharaohs and sacred bulls, some preferred to climb into and at least temporarily occupy the empty sarcophagus or cell—often under circumstances of difficulty. As for Eastern relics, I think America—if not England also—must now contain waggon-loads of them.
We sometimes met the same faces again and again in our wanderings. Among others here was an English lady from Cornwall whom we had met in the drawing-room at Cairo. There she had told me she was obliged to travel a second tour to take care of her nephew—a strong, handsome-looking youth, apparently fit for the Life Guards—whose health, she assured me, was suffering from overwork. He certainly became his illness remarkably well, as half the invalids in Egypt do.
“I was,” said she, “first told, ‘Go to Cairo and die!’ and I went; then I am told, ‘Go to Jerusalem and die!’ and so I am en route now.”
About a month later, as we rode up the beautiful valley of the Lebanons to Balbec, we passed her party riding down—she was an excellent rider and well mounted.
“Go to Damascus and die!” she cried.
She has been to Damascus, but I trust has not died even yet; and hope she may live long enough to “Go to Livingstonia and die!”